Federal Criminal Law & Process – Page 2 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

New Book on Sentencing and Corrections

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:October 23, 2018
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Legal Scholarship Marquette Law School Prisoner Rights Public Race & Law

I am pleased to report that my latest book, Prisons and Punishment in America: Examining the Facts, is now in print. Structured as a series of questions and answers, the book synthesizes the law and social science on sentencing, corrections, and prisoner reentry. Individual chapters cover:

Sentencing law and practice
Alternatives to incarceration
Experience and consequences of incarceration
Release and life after prison
Women, juveniles, and other special offender populations
Causes and significance of mass incarceration in the U.S.
Race, ethnicity, and punishment
Public opinion, politics, and reform

The book is intended to be accessible to readers who do not have training in law or social science, but I also hope that there are some aspects of the book that will be of interest even to those who are already quite familiar with the workings of the criminal justice system.

New Cases on the Constitutionality of Long Sentences for Juveniles: The Graham Saga Continues

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 5, 2017
Post category:Constitutional Interpretation Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Federalism Public U.S. Supreme Court

In Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court barred the sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for crimes committed by anyone under eighteen years of age. Grounded in the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment, the Court’s holding recognized only one exception: juvenile LWOP might be permissible in cases involving homicide.

Despite its seemingly straightforward character, the Graham holding has spawned considerable litigation in the lower courts over its scope and application. Two interesting appellate decisions from last month highlight some of the difficulties.

In the first, U.S. v. Mathurin, the Eleventh Circuit had to consider whether a 685-month prison term should be treated as the functional equivalent of an LWOP sentence for Eighth Amendment purposes.

Violence Prevention Initiatives: The Difficulty of Building on Early Success

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 30, 2017
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Public

Project Safe Neighborhoods has been among the highest-profile and best-funded national violence prevention initiatives of the past two decades, involving allocations of about $1 billion to U.S. Attorney’s Offices across the country. Evaluations to date have generally been positive, but a new study of the PSN experience in Chicago highlights the challenges of building on early success.

The researchers, Ben Grunwald and Andrew Papachristos, attempted a rigorous, beat-level analysis of the impact of PSN on troubled neighborhoods in the Windy City, which had a distinctive approach to PSN that seemed quite effective at first.